Angelinos

My husband and I got back Sunday night from a quick road trip to Los Angeles. He only had a few days off at the tail end of Holy Week (not two weeks like the rest of the country, thanks again un-Mexico). We had originally planned to spend the time kicking around southeastern Arizona ghost towns with the in-laws, the highlight of which was to (hopefully) be a night at a haunted B&B in Bisbee which, apart from the usual spooks, features a hooker-haint who reportedly entertains guests with an otherworldly strip-tease from the foot of the bed. The in-laws had not been informed of these particular details; they are not believers like us, and we figured we’d mention it (or not) after the fact, if we managed to stay a night there.

Alas (or not so deep a sigh), plans changed. My husband’s great uncle died, and my in-laws decided to go to the funeral in L.A. instead. We decided to join them A) out of respect, B) because we’re not sure how many more opportunities we’ll have to seen my husband’s aged grandfather in this world, and C) why the heck not? Neither of us had ever been to that part of Cali before (he used to live in the Bay Area, but had not ventured that far south). I admit that at first I was hesitant; the image I’d always had of L.A. was a plasticky one, and didn’t think I’d find much to do since I’m not in the slightest interested in buying a StarMap and stalking the Pretty People. Gack. I couldn’t care less. What’s a Hollywood-apathetic girl to do? LOTS, we discovered. Much to my pleasant surprise, I *heart* L.A. We seriously tossed around the idea of living there. Quite seriously. Now I want desperately to find a job lucrative enough to take up residence in Santa Monica, maybe Pasadena. More accurately, I want my husband the attorney to bring home sufficient bacon, and post-PhD I’ll get a gig at one of the many universities. Because, let’s be honest, a humanities professor is never going to make that kind of money.

In retrospect, the drive out may be evidence of a lapse in good judgment. We left fair Peñasco at a late hour and drove through the night in shifts, pulling into the L.A. metro area around 6am. Ouch. We stopped in a Kmart parking lot and tried to sleep a bit, to no avail. So, we found an ATM that dispensed spendable green dollars instead of multi-colored pesos, procured some breakfast, loaded up on diet Coke, and made a day of it. By the time we checked into our hotel late that afternoon we were zombies and it took my thirty-something body longer to recover than I’ll admit, but we still managed to have a rip-roaring good time.

Among the joys we crammed in:

-Driving around the city and taking in the view of Angelino humanity in its mind-boggling heterogeny

-The Getty Museum, where in the portrait gallery we discovered my brother’s eerie twin, a Fulano-de-tal 16th-century financial advisor to Carlos V

-Lunch at one of those macro-biotic vegan cafés, because we needed to cleanse after eight hours on the road. After salad-spare weeks in Peñasco, it was delicious mouthfuls of green heaven.

-Strolling Santa Monica Boulevard, including some shopping in which my husband scouted out a very pet-able velvet jacket for me. Why is it that my husband is always the one to spot my best shoes and jackets?

-The carnival rides on Santa Monica pier and requisite funnel cake (after the rides).

-People-watching on Venice Beach.

-Truly talented street performers, including Russian acrobats!!

-Black bean soup, jerked chicken and fried plantains at a Caribbean joint.

-The LaBrea tarpits and the Page Museum. I discovered:
1. I love sabertooth cats just as much as I did as a little kid;
2. While they may have gone extinct millennia before the Grimm Brothers and a continent away, paleolithic Dire Wolves are straight out of a fairy-tale nightmare;
3. I have a new respect for paleontologists, particularly the black ooze diggers, since during the course of NO archaeological excavation did I ever get as sticky-filthy as they do.

-Navigating Pasadena to meet a friend, followed by his guided driving tour of much of L.A. In comparison with my current environs, even the seedier areas didn’t seem so bad, given their paved roads, minimal trash in the streets, and lack of third-world dogs.

-Giving gursha to my husband and aforementioned friend in a dimly lit and delicious Ethiopian restaurant (if you’re scandalized, get your mind out of the gutter and look it up). Quote of the evening: "If I’d known what kind of food they have over there, I’d never have sent money to the Ethiopians when I was a kid". –Our friend, after swallowing a mouthful of spiced lamb and lentils.

-Live Coltrane-imposter jazz at a club in VanNuys.

-Copious quantities of ice cream and gelato.

-And yes, we spent a little less than an hour in the bustle in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and got an eyeful of the freakshow in the surrounding blocks. Mostly I was surprised at how tiny Carmen Miranda’s footprints were in the concrete.

-But we didn’t get to go on The Price Is Right. No chance for Drew Carey to tell me to ComeOnDown!! This is why we have to go back. (That and a garlic restaurant I heard about).

All of that, and we squeezed in the great-uncle’s half-day funeral and some good visiting time with my husband’s family. The interment was very nice and good words were said, but the cemetery was insane. It sits on a steep hillside overlooking the valley. It has a beautiful view (for what that may matter to the deceased) but the graves are set in a precarious slope and I worried for the welfare of the more senior members of the family and for all of our ankles as we hiked up to the open grave. I guess when level real estate is at a premium, one invents (barely) workable solutions.

So, I know I have to take into account that I’m living in a place that makes all infrastructured civilization hover on paradise, but I really was taken with the city. Yes, the traffic is hell, but better than Atlanta or Mexico City. The beach is just as pretty as Peñasco (but much colder, *shiver*). The views are gorgeous. The people are friendly. The air was surprisingly clean (maybe the smog is a summer problem?). The weather was beautiful. It is refreshingly cosmopolitan—even mentioning the ethnic diversity seems redundant. Fresh vegetables and fruits are plentiful year-round. "Organic" and "locavore" are options, not mystery concepts. Name a cuisine and it’s available to satisfy my cravings and curiosity. Every heat-level chile known to man is in somebody’s cooking. It is the Vanity Fair; the seeker can find anything and everything she might want or need. I understand why so many people want to live there. Maybe me, too.